A Christmas Reflection

Merry Christmas! May we all ever better mind our own business!

Walk with me a moment.

Yes, an atheist and a Buddhist of my own orientation, I can certainly celebrate Christmas. Especially having been raised with it as a Catholic. After all it was something that started out as a pagan celebration and was blended with Christmas and Christianity by the Catholic church in order to assimilate those pagan's lands they wished to acquire.

It certainly can be a pagan or secular holiday, too and has become one more and more anyway. And no we don't have to remember what it's roots are in order to celebrate it. But, it is wise to do so for several reasons.

Odd, I know. But true enough.

We can easily use it as a positive reason to treat one another with respect and love without needing to bring a deity into it. A strange consideration for a theist of that particular denomination but hey, there it is.

I think Jesus might just be more accepting of that than many want to believe, or his followers could accept.

Moses? Probably not so much either.. But then, he was a kind of an Old Testament sort of guy.

Muhammad? Well, let's face it. He had some pretty weird ideas and wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack and pretty much the same with anyone believing in all that.

I suppose Jesus had some odd ideas himself but he wasn't actually the one who turned his beliefs into magic. He wasn't the Buddha surely, but then according to the Dalai Lama, Jesus himself was a Buddha. And he taught some basic Buddhist beliefs in order to alter Judaism.

Perhaps Mohammed too was a Buddha, though I have my doubts on that.

Jesus had that need to blend with Judaism and the old Testament in order to build change into the nonsense he had grown up and into. Teachings that weren't so ridiculous back then before the advent of refrigeration and other advancements. Though he did as I said, incorporate elements of the Buddha Dharma to create his new Judaism (later, Christianity) and well, that was a very good thing.

But let's face it. In simply reading the record...we have Mohammed on the bottom, then Moses, Jesus and finally and foremost, Buddha, from least to most. It doesn't take a genius to see that's the order. Sad? Perhaps. But reality can be difficult. And besides, that is to be expected since Gautama Buddha, Siddhartha, was the best educated and least superstitious of all of them.

Still it matters little as all their legacies have been abused and subverted by some or many. It is after all what you pick and choose to believe. Sad as that is. It is much like trying to decide which is the best martial art. A foolish endeavor and does no one much good, for it is all about how you use what knowledge you have chosen, how you apply it, that is most important.

It isn't because I understand Buddha (not his descendants, not his followers, but The Buddha), makes more sense than all the rest of them combined. Consider, Jesus in his life had access to the teachings of the Buddha from travelers, if not from his own. He incorporated those teachings into Judaism and tweaked it so it worked to lead Jews into a more sane belief system. Just as Catholicism centuries later would incorporate paganism into their beliefs in order to assimilate new tribes and beliefs as they infected their world. These aren't wild beliefs. Just reality and history.

I read, I discussed, debated and analyzed and that's how it panned out. Look, don't get mad at me. If God supported anyone of those guys (and I don't think he does, or exists for that matter), then He would have made it quite obvious who was on top. Not much more to say after that, is there....

Yet that's not really what is important here, though. No, really. It's not.

First... allow me to wish you and yours a happy holiday season. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, a cheery whatever you wish you want to enjoy and celebrate at this winter solstice time.

But what is all this really? Let's lay off for a moment with what history, reality and tradition tell us and just think about what actually is.

You see, there is after all, magic in life.

It isn't the magic of religion or Gods or what we wished (or fear) exists. It's the magic of Humanity. Though we're mostly too humble to allow ourselves to accept that. As vain and greedy, terrified in the face of the universe and life as we are, we are still too humble to accept that we are it. That this is it. All of it.

Isn't that odd?

There is a movie that exemplifies what I'm trying to say here. A 2011 film with one of my favorite entertainers in it, Eddie Izzard. The film is Lost Christmas. It's not about religion but the magic that is Life. And if that doesn't work, here's some others who can explain Christmas a little better.

In life, we have who we have and the memories we have with them. We also have what we believe we will have and those memories that we will then have with them, whomever "they" will be. What we leave, after we no longer exist, really isn't what we will have ourselves at all. Though sometimes we act like it, but it is really what others will have after we are no longer there.

So all we really have is ourselves, our others, our memories. Then we're simply gone and it's the end.

It is hard for many to contemplate dying, or not existing. We don't relate to it as humans. And so we have invented ways, som rather bizarre ways, in our ancient ignorance to deal with it. Okay.

So now let's take a step beyond that and talk about....

Religion and Guns.

No, really, bear with me a moment longer.

Believe it or not, there is something familiar there between those two things.

I'm going to tell you a secret. Something people need to share. Something people need to not keep quiet about. In fact if you need one thing in life to shout to the world, this would be it.

Those who want to spread the "word" will tell you otherwise, but that is from their inside out. Possibly your inside out, too. But that is dysfunctional. It is dangerous. It is against the need of the many, the need of all. Here it is.

Do not share your religion with everyone. Please. Keep it to yourself. Share it with others of a like mind. Offer to those who inquire of you about it. And let that be it. For the benefit of us all. Be open to sharing. But be quiet about forcing the issue on others. You're only doing yourself and your beliefs a disservice. And a disservice to all the rest of us. Regardless what you religion or leaders tell you. Especially in the money grubbing  super churches and many of the evangelical corporate thinking type endeavors.

Evangelicism being one of the great banes America has infected the world and our nation with.

Although some of us do believe you should be ashamed to share your "faith" in these beliefs you hold, with anyone, you are welcome in my world to live your life as you see fit, to pursue happiness for the most part, as you see fit. This is America, still, and hopefully we will survive Trump and his minions.

And so everyone is welcome to their own delusions which we all have. Just be aware, if you bring down our most basic ideals of freedom in the  name of a faux freedom as designed by the greedy now in charge, you will eliminate not on that freedom but your right to your own personal delusions. In religion, in everything.

And you will have to begin to believe in what those in power want you to believe. Much as Trump is doing now, in forcing fakeness and diatribe upon us all in order to enrich both himself and his cohorts.

With only this exception.

For the good of all you should wear your faith under your coat, not on your sleeve for all to see. Signs of your Faith, quiet signs like jewelry, is fine. But the vocal part, you should wear just as you should wear your gun under your coat and out of sight. If you have a gun, and want to carry it around.

Though better it is best for all for you to leave it at home. Rather than forcing force by vigilante actions, force the government to apply funding and resources to protect us properly. THAT is a far better way. Hold our representatives to task to protect us so we do not have to protect ourselves to the degree tha is now perceived, many times incorrectly, but so many. And so many whoa re ignorant and believe whatever their favorite pundits say.

Faith extremists will tell you to preach the word to all and any! Spread the word to assure the continuation of your addiction! Shove your beliefs down the throat of any and all because your God demands it!

But no. That is the way of the immature.

As in religion they will say, propagate, raise your children up with your religion. Force religion down the throat of all humanity until they have no choice but to be subjugated to whatever your choice of religion is and to Hell with all others! Because they become indeed then, The Others.

But that is from within. Don't you see?

From without, from within the whole of humanity, we are many and varied. Diversity is good. But delusion not based in reality is of late, endemic and dangerous and could bring about our own demise.

We need therefore to coexist in order to be, together. That means we need to allow others to seek their faith as they see it. Even when it seems foolish or anti to your religion. Because your religion (even if it's guns) may seem anti to theirs.

Maybe you're right. Maybe, they're right. Because, what if you're wrong? But then, your religion doesn't allow for that, does it? Would it? No, because that is the design of religion in the first place. Isn't it.

And that is fine, I suppose. Mostly. For now.

I would say that in today's world it has now reached a point where we need to kill those who push their beliefs on others so that those who do not, who live to allow others their lives and beliefs, can be the ones in the end to survive and prosper.

Because we do not need those who will push their beliefs on others. Besides it will only, counterintuitively lead to the demise of those who are most obnoxious and pushy. As religion is on the decline globally anyway. It just seems like it's growing because any animal dying and in a corner, becomes louder and more dangerous, until it's dead.

For they are the troglodytes, those who push the ancient and archaic mythologies as reality. The proto humans who need to die off so the evolved humans can survive to propagate and replace them.

Just as children one day finally need to leave their childhood selves behind so that they too can become adults.

We all need to grow. But we do not all need to make others into our own image. Even if we believe that is the image of our God. We need... to all live together. Together in ways that will allow us all to live and prosper and be happy. Together.

And those who do not believe that?

They need to find their end. Quickly. And if they cannot then they need, they are asking us for, our help to end them in their difficult journey.

Hard words, right? Well? Life is hard. But it doesn't have to be. Global warming is real. To think that "God will save us" or "God will fix it", is ludicrous and childish.

We don't need to be making it any harder. Regardless what our beliefs are. We just need to get along. Believe what you will, but remember to treat others with respect and leave the judging to your God. Because if you don't believe your God will judge them, then you do not believe in your God. So either way...stop being demeaning to others.

So, a cheery winter's solstice to you and may you be happy and may you leave others alone, when they need it.

Sláinte!

I wish you all the best, the best of Life, Memories and the after...for your others.

One last thing....treat one another as if all you know was:

And you only have, one another.

Finally....

What to do with Sharia Law? Act Now.

I just watched a Vice News report on Indonesia and a segment about the implementation of Sharia Law.

This situation may need to be turned around and applied, to some degree, as the abusers are applying it.

We may well need a newly ratified world wide law and considered Human Right restricting ANY religion from imposing its will on ANY human being without their expressed desire or permission for it to be imposed upon them or their family.

Thereby on their discovery, the immediate disbanding of such an organization to involve if necessary, death.

Perhaps we are at that tipping point where we need to protect humanity against certain religions or sects? I know I for one am sick to death of hearing about these abuses on humanity and travesties upon human beings. I'm tired of others forcing their will on people they do not even know.

All because of a stupid and mean spirited ideology based on the ideal of an Idiot God as worshiped by a tiny minded, small sect of morons who are a very small part of a very large religion. And an idiot's view of their so called "prophet", Muhammad. Grow the hell up.

Guys, if you can't play nice with others, we can destroy you....

Our Worldwide Carpetbaggers - Saudi Arabia, ISIS and Trump

Loyalty. Something that has become archaic now a days. It suffers because of profit, because of corporate thinking...profit of die. It suffers because of confusion for what direction, what level, that it should be aimed toward. Confusion from a lack of education, information, an ability to ascertain reality.

I'm going a bit off the deep end here, but hang in here with me. In fact, now that the RNC is on this week, and considering the hate speech of the speakers like Chris Christie, Dan Savage pointed out Wednesday night (Dan Savage Compares RNC Hillary Hate To Rhetoric Before Yitzhak Rabin Assassination) on a special edition of Real Time with Bill Maher that this kind of thing was done to Yitzhak Rabin years ago in Israel too, just before someone shot and killed him.

OK. Here we go.

Trump says we're losing to ISIS. I say we're losing with Trump.

But then Trump isn't very bright, except where it comes to promoting himself. One person said his father had dealings with him years ago and after the meeting said it was obvious Trump hadn't at that time, read a book in twenties years.

Now he's just an old, bloated twit who would have been one of the first carpetbaggers and scalawags to have entered the South after the Civil War had he lived back then. Those confidence men from the north who back then had been hated by most of those whom now are his supporters.

Carpetbaggers are defined as such:
- a political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connections.
- (in the US) a person from the northern states who went to the South after the Civil War to profit from the Reconstruction.
- a person perceived as an unscrupulous opportunist.

Some may have had good intentions but so many didn't, it set a new standard for what is an individual of low integrity. Kind of like people like Trump, or Cruz, Newt Gingrich or, well...there's a lot of them anymore in the zombie Republican party that no longer as anything whatsoever to do with the party of Abraham Lincoln.

"During and immediately after the Civil War, many northerners headed to the southern states, driven by hopes of economic gain, a desire to work on behalf of the newly emancipated slaves or a combination of both. These “carpetbaggers”–whom many in the South viewed as opportunists looking to exploit and profit from the region’s misfortunes–supported the Republican Party, and would play a central role in shaping new southern governments during Reconstruction.

"In addition to carpetbaggers and freed African Americans, the majority of Republican support in the South came from white southerners who for various reasons saw more of an advantage in backing the policies of Reconstruction than in opposing them. Critics referred derisively to these southerners as “scalawags.”

Carpetbaggers were men who arrived in the south after the Civil War with their bags, luggage made from carpets, who proceeded to rip people off for their own benefit. Taking advantage of others with no concern for them whatsoever and therein earned the only honest thing they did, a reputation for being some of the vilest people in the world.

And yet, Trump supporters cannot see that in him. That is as stunning as things he has said, things that are blatantly said only for the purpose of getting him into office, of winning, at potentially any, and all costs. As long as he doesn't get caught. But maybe he will. Some of the court proceeding against him are very unsettling.

Like those scalawags of old, Trump lies. He says what you want to hear like a true confidence man. Then he will take what he wants and be damned how it leaves you, leaves us all, in the end. Trump is in this to win, regardless. With no concern or respect for his actions, other than to win. A very archaic, outdated way of doing politics and one that needs to die a quick and painful death. One that it seems to be doing in the zombie Republican Party as they continually eat their own.

What was once a highly despicable type of person has somehow to our conservative brothers and sisters, become a revered and supported one. One spiraling out of control toward the office of president of the United States, the most powerful position in the world. These new (Republican) carpetbaggers aren't just after money as were those in the old days. They're not just after power. They're after ideological power.

From the outside Islam seems in many countries to be afraid of their own religion, their own people. They do not seem to believe in fighting other Muslim countries even when they are bad people (ISIS, Boko Haram, etc.), or they would have policed their own Middle East by now. They fear enforcing laws doing what they claim they are trying to do, what they say they want to do, in order to stop these kinds of practices. And yet it all continues.

But the women are fighting back. Someone there has finally had it. They are risking their lives and but affecting changes themselves. And they may succeed.

You would think people would have more sense, would feel more responsibility, would want for more than just their own selfish, petty beliefs and desires. But no. That is not who they seem to be. That is our new World Conservative.

Extremists and proud of it. They are a disease and we need to irradiate it and inoculate against their arising ever again. They have used religion as the agar in a Petri dish to grow their suffocating, flesh eating bacteria within, but then have moved out into pure terrorism.

Like the stock traders of the 80s these people all still think, "Greed is good", a mantra we should all take to heart and concern. Yet that has proven to be the definition of insanity. Not for the individual but for the whole of humanity. And for our nation. Seeking greed (of money, power, control over women, etc.), destroys and yet, they think they can build a nation, or a religion on it. But you can't. If you do, you are building it on a house of cards. Cards made of an unstable material.

Trump has convinced his people and then as he knew they would, they have convinced themselves (and truth be told, Trump, oddly enough too). He has shown that displays of idiocy such as his are more valued than that of common decency, real knowledge, and the wisdom to use it appropriately. Not just for their group's "benefit" but for all.

If you don't believe any of this, then I would suggest taking in several things right here right now.

A Frontline special titled, Saudi Arabia Uncovered (S34E5 - 2016).
Washington Post, Inside ISIS: Quietly preparing for the loss of the ‘caliphate’.

An NBC News report, Donald Trump Lays Out Foreign Policy Plan, Including How to Fight Terrorism (March 26, 2016):
"If elected, Trump told the Times he might also halt the purchase of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies because they've been unwilling to send their troops in on the ground to fight against ISIS despite efforts by President Barack Obama to have them join a U.S.-led coalition.

"Hours after the interview was published, the former head of Obama's Auto Task Force, Steven Rattner, tweeted that Trump "has no idea how oil market works. We take only about 10% of what Saudi Arabia produces."

Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the world. While Trump is after money and power the royal Saudi family and friends are after power and ideological control. All while a quarter of the Saudi people are in poverty. Poverty they said they'd get a handle on in a few years, which has now long passed.

Still, with the change in oil commodities worldwide and new sources of energy, it's projected Saudi Arabia could go bankrupt within five years. Then what? It won't be pretty.

They are a highly welfare state. While their oil fields are worth trillions of dollars, their monetary reserves are shrinking. With war in Syria and Yemen, their money is further dwindling and they still have far too much poverty.

Their issue is in supporting Sharia Law and the mindset of many of its people. A mindset that is exported to the world at large, and to terrorist types in particular. It is surely a complicated issue, but one we ourselves as a nation need to get under control to our satisfaction and the world's, in dealing with them, and with their continued existence.

They have religious police who shout things such as, "You can only find peace and joy in God." They do this while curbing individual freedoms, individual's choices in life. There are prejudicial teachings in their schools that say among other things, Christians should be killed.

Any religion that requires people to go around and enforce their religion is really no religion at all. If a people cannot choose on their own what their religion and intensity within that religion should be, then it goes against the concept of free will and so devalues any attempts by others, by religious police, for that religion to be viable or potentially, anything other than anti-human. Certainly it is anti-humane.

It is a mindset that has in part spawned those such as ISIS whose so called caliphate this year has shrunk so far by 12%. If we are to kill ISIS, we cannot avert our eyes from Saudi Arabia. We can no longer ignore the applications world wide of Sharia Law, of misogynistic religious laws, or ancient and foolish beliefs systems, all simply because people hold these beliefs so dearly and as such an intricate part of themselves and their identity.

Extremism needs to be killed when and wherever it shows it's ugly head. Not all forms of extremism are bad to be sure. But when it is exposed to be, it needs to be addressed and dealt with accordingly.

I welcome people to practice their delusional or disillusionment, even their silly beliefs, their ancient religious practices, as long as first and foremost they treat all people as human beings and not just those of their special class. In allowing them to continue, in not doing SOMEthing to dilute and dissemble such beliefs in our own country and worldwide, we have given a nod and a smile to the incessant proliferation of these types of beliefs.

IF you say your religion is not as we see it is in practice, then what is it about your religion that is allowing these things to happen and when will it be rectified? It requires speaking out against at least that form of your religion, to get it under control, to bring those people doing bad things up to modern times. That means picking and choosing better, for yourself, and for those bad people abusing your religion, what is truly important from your ancient religious beliefs and books whatever it is you should be doing and in what you shouldn't.

In my mind a true religion would not allow for people to misinterpret it.
I would argue then, there are no true religions. Just, religions.

We too are responsible and will continue to be as long as we support this ubiquitous stupidity, selfishness and sectism in governments. Including even our own.

Electing elitists and fascists such as Trump are the antithesis of any kind of rational answer. But that would take people voting who are compassionate for the right reasons, using actual wisdom to see beyond their own pettiness, beliefs and desires.

We ARE however getting a handle on ISIS.

Once ISIS falls, for the time being they are going to go underground like cockroaches, become harder, smaller, to deal with. Until we get a handle on not just ourselves, but also on how our government deals with foreign governments like Saudi Arabia, people like Trump and his conservative followers and the Republican zombie party at large are going to have to be dealt with. Dissembled and dispersed. That way of thinking has to be put into the ground, irradiated, salted, fired, and sterilized.

We are America!

Let's make that mean what it should and get back on our rational and useful track. For us. For the world. If we are to continue as a world leader we need to lead. Not business as usual, but business as inspiring as we can make it. We need to be progressive, inclusive, strong, and persevere to see it all one day finally, functional for all. But that means many of that all will need to adjust their beliefs also.

Conservatives fear change. That they will have to change. Let the others change they say. We all however have to change. And that, is OK. I'm OK, you can be OK. But it's a two sided coin. Flip it, and we are both involved. Try to force which side is up, and you are a fascist and you therefore ARE, the enemy. The enemy of Humankind.

Don't be our enemy. Be our friend. Work with us. Stop working against us. Work against the system, not against the people. Work against stupid beliefs, work for beliefs that serve Humankind. And if you believe in God, then it would be working toward God, because as you are taught, he created all things.

If people are going to hate America, let it be only those the entire world wants to see dispensed with.

Then the rest of us will be able to get along with living our lives together, in safety, in prosperity, and in a way that all may pursue happiness for themselves and their loved ones.

Let's put the Scalawags and Carpetbaggers of the world, of our nation, in their place. Prison. If not a prison of the body, then a prison of their mind, their actions and their power and money.

This planet is for us, The People. Not a few wealthy, powerful, religious, or terrorists.

We are the World. Let our feet march on them, trample them into dirt so that we can grow things for everyone and not just those who are bullies enough, terrorists in action and politics enough, to frighten us into submission.

Just as happened this weekend in Greece when the people came out flooding into the streets of Istanbul, overwhelming the military junta's soldiers with masses of people supporting their elected government, we have to take control. Through our voices, our votes, our calls to freedom. To a freedom that is real freedoms and not just words. Human Rights. Civil Liberties. Women's and minority rights. People's rights.

They say a con man, a confidence man, can only work his magic to steal what you have by relying on your own innate greed, ignorance and stupidity. Don't be that guy or woman.

All is not hopeless. Hope is truly everywhere. We just have to apply it. We just have to help.

And have Loyalty. To ourselves, to our people, to our entire human race.

Terrorist, Zealot

I was watching The Blacklist last week. A character said something about a criminal they had caught being a Zealot.

A bell went off in my head.

I, we, many of us, have been talking about religious fundamentalists, Muslim terrorists. But I've seen normal citizen Muslim Fundamentalists talking in interviews about how they are the real fundamentalists and how terrorists aren't and have hijacked their Islam and fundamentalism. Terrorists have subverted the citizen's, the true believers, not these charlatan's benign fundamentalism which is not so much a literal interpretation of Islam but a search for the purity that can be found within it.

See, that's what religion is actually about. Finding the spirit of it, the purity within it, the benign and the beautiful. Once you turn religion into something ugly like Daesh has, well, it's an ugly faux religion. Mohammed becomes The Great Satan. You, and others like you Daesh, have done that.

Choosing to select out the most violent and damaging elements in a religion is, as in any religious choosing, just that, a personal choice. A choice to be destructive. Because for a certain selection of individuals it hits the pleasure centers of their brain, configured in such a way through information received and then doted upon, as well as the physical brain structure.

Throughout those many the individuals in these groups, such as Daesh (ISIL, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, etc.), the balance sways from one side to the other whether it is their learnings or the way they are hardwired as to why they are how they are. And within those elements, the intensity of their purpose sways along with it.

So what are these terrorists, other than merely criminals?

There is an historical record of Zealots in the bible and through the historian Josephus.

So why is nobody calling them Zealots? Too much historical theistic baggage associated with them? Because these were originally Christians and not Muslim as are these modern terrorists and so would be seen as offensive? Or does Zealot not fit since Islam didn't even exist back when Zealots did, in Islam being a newer religion, but still one of the major three major harsh, anachronistic desert or Abrahamic religions.

Much as using terms like The Crusade isn't very useful in referring to Islamic references, calling Islamic terrorists Zealots, may very well be incorrect. However in the same vein as George Bush referring to terms like "making a crusade" in trying to irritate terrorists (or in calling Saddam Hussein, "Soddom" or "SaDamn"), so would calling them Zealots be considered offensive to them.

But also and more importantly to the rest of the Muslim world (as we really don't care much if terrorists are offended or not) and I really don't see a need to offend the majority of the Muslim world, most of whom really aren't doing anything wrong.

"According to the Jewish historian Josephus, three main Jewish groups existed at the time of Christ—the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. He also mentions a fourth group called the Zealots who were founded by Judas of Galilee and Zadok the Pharisee. Josephus notes that the Zealots “agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord" (Antiquities 18.1.6)." - GotQuestions.org

These types of shall we call them, nutcases(?), have been around for a long, damn time.

So, what does it matter? It matters because it tells us much about them that has long been documented. These modern Muslim terrorists aren't some new phenomenon like some of us believe. Using suicide vests is. But it's not a new tradition, sacrificing themselves for their beliefs. It's an old tactic using a new technology. Explosives.

"Of importance in New Testament history, the Zealots led a rebellion when Rome introduced imperial cult worship. The Great Jewish Revolt began in A.D. 66. The Zealots successfully overtook Jerusalem, but their revolt was ultimately unsuccessful. In A.D. 70, the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the temple. A remnant of the Zealots then took refuge in Masada." - GotQuestions.org

So, the "Masada people", known by that moniker for that terrestrial land formation where the Siege of Masada in 74A.D. occurred. Surrounded by Roman troops it led to the mass suicide of 960 Jewish family residents of Masada as well as the Sicarii rebels and families, at the end of the First Roman\Jewish War.

The Masada victims have  been praised and thought very highly of all through history since it happened, for standing by beliefs to the bitter end. In fact mentioning Masada has become shorthand for a positive consideration of sticking with your beliefs to the end, regardless. 

People don't usually mean to take it to you and your family's death.

"Because of their often-violent tactics, the Zealots have been called some of the world’s first terrorists. Though the label is only partially true (not all Zealots were violent), the reputation of Zealots as forceful, aggressive agitators carries a significant lesson for us. Jesus chose Simon the Zealot, a man who likely desired to forcibly remove the Roman government, and He also chose Matthew, a tax collector working for the Roman government. Both Simon and Matthew, though natural enemies, were part of the Twelve. What a beautiful illustration of the peace Jesus brings! Today, God still brings healing and changes lives. Those with a violent past or extremist tendencies can be transformed as God uses them to spread the good news of Christ’s love for all people." - GotQuestions.org

"Good news of Christ's love". Unless those zealots are Muslim, an offshoot of Christianity, which is an offshoot of Judaism and Buddhism. 

Overall this tells us a lot about our current terrorists... zealots, the world's Muslim oriented infestation. 

Who were the Sacari?

"In 66 CE, at the beginning of the Great Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire, a group of Jewish extremists called the Sicarii overcame the Roman garrison of Masada and settled there. The Sicarii were commanded by Eleazar ben Ya'ir,[3] and in 70 CE they were joined by additional Sicarii and their families expelled from Jerusalem by the Jewish population with whom the Sicarii were in conflict. Shortly thereafter, following the Roman siege of Jerusalem and subsequent destruction of the Second Temple, additional members of the Sicarii and many Jewish families fled Jerusalem and settled on the mountaintop, with the Sicarii using it as a refuge and base for raiding the surrounding countryside.[7][8] The works of Josephus are the sole record of the events that took place during the siege. According to modern interpretations of Josephus, the Sicarii were an extremist splinter group of the Zealots and were equally antagonistic to both Romans and other Jewish groups.[9] It was the Zealots, in contrast to the Sicarii, who carried the main burden of the rebellion, which opposed Roman rule of Judea (as the Roman province of Iudaea, its Latinized name).

According to Josephus, on Passover, the Sicarii raided Ein-Gedi, a nearby Jewish settlement, and killed 700 of its inhabitants.[10][11][12]" - Wikipedia

Kind of an annoying people by anyone's standard. Unless I suppose, you were one of them but even then I bet some of them thought they were annoying.

The point of all this is that it tells us what our modern day version of the zealot is like, who they are internally and, the extent to which they will go for their cause. However ridiculous and unrealistic it may be. That makes them dangerous and frequently, unreasonable. Not crazy as some claim. But focused. When you focus on something unreal, unrealistic, that really creates a problem. For yourself and everyone you come into contact with. 

A problem we have seen and continue to see in American conservative and religious groups.

They do things that are counter productive for others and for themselves, and they break things. The current Republican party is a prime example of political dysfunctional function and something they have broken.

Some great strides in recent decades have come about in things like hostage negotiation and negotiating through difficult and dire circumstances. However look how things have gone in the Middle East in that vein. Now consider zealots, coming from those people in that region. Our own defective conservatives and their issues in America are weak by comparison. So using many of these new techniques is questionable at best. We have taken here in America basically to containing them until they fizzle out, then collect them. It's better than situations like Ruby Ridge, or Waco, Texas. When it came be done.

Finally what this history of dysfunction, of destructive fundamentalism, of zealotry tells us is just as I'd suspected and as many others do. Ultimately they are doomed to failure.

It may take special weapons and tactics and I do not mean what you see in movies. Not what you might be thinking of, visualizing. But perhaps something we haven't even thought of yet. What beats people like this is choking them off until they can see their beliefs die, until others see those beliefs die, or in converting them.

Which is typically most easily done with lead moving at high velocities or in very fast burning substances rated at over 7,000 feet per second. That is to say, explosives, think drone attacks in the Middle East, drones which I must say, I am against probably about 90% of the times they are used as collateral damage in killing civilians for me, is unacceptable.

All this effort by terrorists, all this destruction, the killing of so many innocents and so many of their own soldiers, of their own Muslim believers, all for them merely to fail in the end, or sooner.

We can see it. They can even see it. The point is that none of that matters because they will still do it.

What that means to us is that we have to finish them off. Because they cannot find a sane conclusion on their own. In their seeking their most sane conclusion, to the rest of us it simply appears, insane.

Thanks for that religion, youth, greed, disparate in economic status, and so on. Because much of what terrorists are after and what has ignited their anger, bitterness and actions, are not necessarily what it seems, or what they claim. In the end they are just as stupid and deluded as many of the rest of us.

We just don't usually go around killing people becuase we're pissed off, or blame it on religion. We need to see them accurately, understand their motivations. Their actual motivations. And for that we can see back over time how this can come to be and how we can wipe this mind worm (implanted idea that grows, evolves and cannot easily be rid of) religious infection that overflows out onto other areas in the Human Experience.

But initially it all begins in one fundemental thought. When that thought is not a good one, or even if it is a good one, it can lead to some very negative and most of the time, unnecessary consequences. 

Think...Masada.

Special Edition: No one calls Mohammed an ahole. Why not, his Jihadists are?

No one calls Mohammed an Asshole, or any other ancient religious leader for that matter.

But why not? Fear of offending him? Fear of offending others? Why? Because they will try to kill us, possibly? There is no need to fear non believers. There is no need to fear the death of Faith. Faith is not dying. Religions are.

The reason we are seeing radical Islam is because religion doesn't work.

Frustration in politics and religion for many Muslims have brought simpletons like the members of groups like Al Qaeda and ISIL to fruition, to membership and action. Sad, disaffected people who join, or as in San Bernardino, who randomly strike out on their own, do so because they find their lives unsatisfactory. Their religion doesn't do enough or anything, for them.

They lash out at non Muslims and Muslims alike. But they also kill other Muslims in their complete and utter discare of killing their own because they know very well, although they are too stupid to recognize it, too blinded by their dysfunctional ideology, that Islam, that Allah, that their silly man made religion, is false and quite useless for their purposes as radical murderers and previously as inactive Muslims.

So they act.

Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Sikh, you name the religion, it boils down to a silly group of people congregating to worship and ideology of disaffected people. When they begin to realize what a load of crap it all is, they act. But rather than act against their beliefs, which acknowledges they have been duped, that they have been stupid, they lash out from that point into the world.

We all suffer for religion still existing.

Long after it has served any purpose it may have once had we all  continue to suffer for it. It's high time religion finally just bury itself, pull he dirt over its own head, so that finally once and for all, Humanity can move on into a brave new world where we depend upon ourselves, to move off planet into the stars above, where religion has no reason to exist.

Whatever purpose religion once had there are now (actually always have been) other, better forms to take its place.

Regarding Islam, just where did it come from?

Christianity was an attempt by Emperor Constantine to control his flailing empire through the Nicene Council in creating the bible to get a handle on things that were out of control because of a splintered form of religion, Christianity. What about Islam?

Haven't you ever wondered why, thought it rather odd that the three major desert religions or the Middle East, all have similar holy places, so close upon one another? Coincidence? If so, what a very odd one. Try this on for size (video):

How the Vatican created Islam

Think that's all nonsense? I agree, it IS all nonsense.

Now can we move on? And if not, isn't it because of people stuck in their beliefs, infected by this insanity, as benign as it can at times be. Yet we'd be really so much better off without it.

Regardless, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of religions. And high time it is, indeed.

Here is a video of a debate between one of my favorite people, the late Christopher Hitchens vs Islam via Prof. Tariq Ramadan. Here is also to be fair, a video of Chris vs Christianity via William Lane Craig (another with Cardinal George Pell), and lastly a video of Chris vs Judaism via Rabbi David Wolpe.

Mr. Ramadan is very erudite but it's still a matter of fact that people have to pick and choose what they believe in, for what their religion states in it's religious books. Which itself, makes it dangerous and allows for things like the Christian Crusades, and Islamic Jihad.

Is it odd Hitchens doesn't really oppose Buddhism? I don't think so, although Buddhism does have foolish humans trying to turn it into a religion. Because that is what we do, by way of our defects in our make up.

Also another video with some of his comments on religion in general beginning with a joke about Buddhism. Finally a video with Chris Hitchens 2004: Genocide, Bamiyan, Buddha, Taliban, Al Queda, Rwanda

Chris takes a harder line on religion than I do. I'm not anti Islam, Christianity, or any religion in particular. I just think religion is overall a childish past time that has caused us a lot of grief and as we become more evolved, ever more problematic. Especially when there are other, better ways to live your life that are far more productive. Without religion, would we have landed on the moon in the year 1500?

I wish no harm against Muslims who are decent people. Or theists who are decent. But there seem to be so much religious scum floating on top of the social pool anymore that we have to act to stop it.

Just to make it painfully clear... I have nothing against Muhammad, Jesus, or any of those types of people. Just those types of people that slimy people worship. THOSE are the Muhammad's I find despicable. The Jesus who sucks. And so on.

We are actually experiencing the evolution of Faith as it evolves beyond the stupidity we've placed upon it for thousands of years. The banal foolishness of ancient old men, their housewives and scared children. That of religion, of useless rituals, of imagination counter to being fundamentally productive in any real or even if you prefer, spiritual way.

Some people certainly deserve for us to offend their religion, from how those people act. Islamic terrorists show us all, even other Muslims how their Allah, how Muhammad are mere people put into or manipulated to be in extraordinary circumstances, not deserving of the excessive respect they are afforded, little or none of the attention they get, or all the vain shoutings of "Allah be praised" by the foolish, the delusional and certainly the murderous.

Whenever you mention anything too much, you must know that it becomes diluted. That it begins to lose its meaning. All the shoutings we constantly hear of Allahu Akbar! Just how much meaning does that really have in it for those people beyond an affectation? Beyond mind washing?

You might say as Arthur C. Clarke did in Childhood's End:

"You deceived us." But no. I didn't and those few others who can also see clearly, haven't.
"You have deceived yourselves."

Look. I have nothing against any religion or religious people. Yes, ritual and religions are pretty silly and run through all young races. I have in fact, high respect for people who are monks, priests, nuns or similar types in any religion, including Islam.

If they are good leaders, and not recruiting murderers, not spewing pure crap to their followers, but are finding the truth, giving their people something in life to make their lives more than it is with what little they may have in their lives.

Mohammed couldn't read. Ignorant as he was, the so called unschooled Prophet, he surrounded himself at some point with people smarter than himself. Which I'll grant you, is not stupid, building a religion of hero worship upon something as silly as the Jewish religion and so even more so. At least Christianity was a call to more sanity at the time, but there too it went seriously wrong along the way beyond its initial inclusions of Buddhists elements.

Early Christians and Muslims didn't have enough education or historical insight to start their own religions. So they ripped off Judaism. But they were up against worse issues and what they did in creating a new religion probably made sense at the time.

There once again you have yet another man made God or Allah and religion. If these were such great religions how come their sacred tomes (Bible and Quran) have allowed for things such as the Crusades, and Jihads? If they are the literal Word of Allah, of God, well...we won't even go into the Christian Inquisitions, the Dark Ages, recent Jihads, and so on.

No one wants to speak out against religions because people get upset if you call into question what they believe, what they have believed since they were born, what their parents and ancestors have mistakenly believed...and unbelievably, even for thousands of years. At least Mormons, as silly a religion as that is, or Scientology, are young, and can be excused in some ways.

But no, no they cannot and they should know better.

And we shouldn't call into question their silliness? Really.

Let's talk about Abraham nearly killing his son because, "God told him to."

Uh, right.

We know now that it was a test, at least according to the old texts. God just wanted to see if Abraham was loyal and followed orders. But maybe later, God in a weak moment was just being kind. What IF what God wanted to hear from Abraham, a rational rebuke?

In using this situation as a metaphor for so many other religious situations through time, for Abraham to have just listened to what God requested of him (albeit as a voice in his head I might add, it doesn't sound crazy at all in reviewing it through more modern filters, right?), and then, sanely, for Abraham to have a pair of balls and simply to have said:

"God, judgement is yours. Therefore even if it is you requesting it of me, I cannot take it on myself to kill one of your creations, and my son."

Now that, would be a test! To deny God's orders to not do what he commanded? Utter Awesomeness. Now that sounds more like a God testing someone, doesn't it?

But no. Abraham pussied out. Just like Mohammed and his modern Jihadist followers.

The biggest pussies in the universe are Jihadists because they do not have the balls to refuse their own stupid mistaken beliefs. Or to realize they are stupid. Or that they are stupid, petty people.

They just like killing. Face it. After all, it's easy. It's satisfying and yet it's stupid. Just as Mohammed was an ancient anachronism having little or no meaning and less value today as does Christianity or Judaism.

Okay to be fair, Mohammed may have had good reason to say some of the physically based things he said way back when. Though the spiritual stuff certainly as it plays out over time, was just pretty silly and useless. Like flicking a Bic lighter a thousand years ago. You get ooos and awwws but really, what is it? Butane in a plastic container with a spark.

Not to mention, spending that much time devoted to a spiritual consideration, praying that many times a day when you could be doing something useful? It's a huge waste of time and energy for normal citizens and should be partitioned to special religious individuals.

Not to mention, having a callous on your forehead makes you look pretty damn silly. But then, it let's the rest of us know your somewhat scary orientation in life and the real world.

Spend that time actually DOING something, affecting change maybe, dildo.

Now I'm not saying that meditation isn't good, it is. Sure.

To mistake meditation for prayer is ignorant and an utter waste of time. Not to mention when you tie it to idiots like Daesh, or the fools and criminals in Boko Haram well, you've earned the biggest "Chump in the World" award. Or the Jihadist Favored Idiot of Mohammed Award. May your 72 virgins have syphilis when you get to your heaven and all be ancient old virgin crones only as you deserve. Grow up.

Look. #Daesh, #ISIS, #ISIL, #BokoHaram, you're all assholes. Deal with it. Get a real job. Work to affect change for your people through the systems that exist. Or make better systems, but don't tear down the world because you're unhappy.

I know. It's too had for your tiny minds to do that.

Killing is so much more fun, rewarding, satiating, empowering, and easy. Right? It's not hard after all to use an AK47 on a woman, a child, or an unarmed old man.

Try to start acting like adults and realize that no one wants or needs your silly fascist styled, ridiculous fundamentalist juvenile religious beliefs.

Humans have a reason for their inherent, built in pattern recognition skills and OCD style behaviors that make religion seems so satisfying. We need as adults to rise above those base, childish instincts.

Humans like masturbation, be it in stroking their genitals or in stroking their beliefs.

Religious ecstasy is very similar to sexual orgasm, just slower, less immediate most of the time. Face the facts. You're not good theists, you're religiously addicted Onanists.

Some people like to have such an intense orgasm they pass out (some even dying through auto-erotic asphyxiation). But you choose to blow yourselves up or die in religious fervor in "battle". Blowing up women and children in a city square or on a bus or a plane is not battle asshole, it's murdering innocents. You even murder your own Muslim people, moron and rationalize it is good. Like you're so important that you can be a judge.

How very romantic you are. What a child you are. The Bible says you must see through the eyes of a child. I bet the Quran says that too, cuz, you know... derivative.

Religion says you must ignore reality for your religion. Don't you get it? Don't you see what foolishness you have bought into? What has been perpetrated upon you for hundreds, thousands of years and your entire civilization has bought into it? Out of fear and feeling good?

No. Obviously. You cannot see how much of a fool you have been made by those you have followed. That is the bane of the theist. Allow me to help you.

Rule number one. Humans do not kill humans.

No, it's not worshiping God. That was just something some guy had told you God had told to him. Come on. Seriously? You really believe that?

Start "worshiping" your God, through taking care of his creations not destroying them. By the way worshiping a Prophet is after all idolatry, and in its crassest sense.

And again, stop being such an asshole.

Fear. Fundamentalists. Conservatives. We have them here.

The reason for conservatives being so out of control regarding their fears, just occurred to me.
If you hear a tiger in the grass and you react appropriately but find it's nothing, you're fine.
If you hear that noise and you think it's nothing, but it IS a hungry tiger, then you're dead.
Using that built in human dynamic inbred though hundreds of thousands of years, and not tempering it through appropriate personal experience, trial and error of your own, then you will come out just as how paranoid conservatives react to everything.
And so you see why we have the situation we have.
An entire stratum of society is paranoid because they haven't live appropriate lives.
We are all living in a very superficial and synthetic social construct.
Those who haven't challenged themselves in the right ways, or not at all, will find a terror behind every bush, building and door.
How can scary immigrants NOT be terrifying to these poor people?
They don't deserve our admonitions. They deserve our care and compassion.
And they as well deserve our not allowing them to be in control of the most powerful nation in the history of the entire human race and this planet.

Let me give you a parable.

Let's say there are three men. One prays, one meditates, both doing all the right stuff and yet (like you) are still lowlifes. They do all the right stuff and yet, they are still not good people. Religion doesn't necessarily stop any of that from happening, in fact research is showing it props bad behavior up. It's wishful thinking much of the time.

Leaders of ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda 

There are many loser religious types. Again, just look at Daesh, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda....

There is this third guy. Remember? I said three guys. He seemingly does all the wrong things. He doesn't believe in God, doesn't pray or meditate. Maybe he parties too much. Doesn't take good care of himself. He doesn't prey on the weak though either. Why? Because he thinks it's just wrong. In essence therefore he ends up doing all the right things, just because he doesn't want to hurt anyone.

He believes if you are just a good and ethical person people will recognize you are trustworthy. Because of that he acquires people around him who support him, who also are attracted to the Golden Rule, or Karma if you wish. Which roughly speaking is:

"Do onto others as you would have others do onto you."

The answer is here:

Be a good person.

It's not that hard. There is no reward in some fantasy "heaven". How capitalistic middle eastern desert religions are. Pay into this life for rewards in the next. Really.

Here on earth is your heaven, or your (our) hell. They are the heaven or hell you make of your life and others.

And you jihadists, you have made hell on earth all because of your silly make believe deities in the sky.

Grow up or die. Soon. Either way we, the people of the Earth do not need you or your ridiculous religious nonsense.

You are spawning right wing, fascist nationalism around the world and that is good for no one but some idiots who believe in a religion that they think teaches human beings to be death rather than life oriented.

Stop associating with those who hate human beings. Stop the self hatred. Stop worshiping a concept inn a god that also seems to hate us and disingenuously attempts to teach us that life is after death and not now when it actually exists.

What kind of person believes in mental tripe, in mind worm beliefs?

Surely no thinking rational person. Surely no "God" would ever think up such crap, only a human being could, or would. Only those who are lost or seeking to control their tribe. And then in as destructive a way as possible in attempting to control others' tribes too. And if they cannot, then they feel chartered to send their believers to kill them because they do not believe the same.

Can you really not hear how demented that is?

It's the old "you're different than me, I kill you!", mentality. How unevolved you are still. You make other Muslims look very bad.

Think, people! Try to think! Use your mind! What little mind you have left after religion has rotted most of it away.

I just saw an extremely moving Fareed Zakaria​ GPS show (12/13/2015) where they interviewed a woman who escaped from Iraq to Syria and then when the civil war started, to Turkey.

All her family had hoped for was to immigrate to the US. They thought they had it sussed at one point and then they were denied through a letter, snail mail. Yes, the US sucks sometimes. You can see how she feels this to her core and we were the ones who turned her down. Her and her family, after the horror she's been through, that ISIS and others have put her through. Over what? Religion? Allah, Muhammad, a piece of land?

The photographer and author who was responsible for her being on the show was also on the air and he nearly broke down in tears in explaining her story and that of others like her. He had interviewed twelve families previously who were accepted into America. A PhD and family, cream of the crop types. But this girl and her family, though they are people we'd be proud to have as citizens, were denied.

We worry (well some do), about our letting in a terrorist who will attack us. Are we really worried about letting in a killer. Or more so about being seen as fools, a seemingly far more pronounced idiocy in some people's minds?

We also have to consider the flip side of thinking that way. Let's shift my ranting at ourselves now, at my people.

What about those we turn down who DO become radicalized, who do end up hating us. BECAUSE in their hour (year, decade) of need, we DID turn them down. When they knew themselves that they were highly worthy of our acceptance and yet, we shat upon them and their family, their love of our ideals, upon their dreams and their needs?

Who then is responsible? More stupid humans.

I reject anyone's comeback in saying to me that they'd have become radicalized anyway since after all, that can be true. But just because it's possible doesn't mean it is how it is or always will be for everyone. It is just as true that we can be our own worst enemies. As we have been in many ways in spawning much of what is transpiring now in the world against us.

Some of those reasons Jihadists have used against us are real, accurate, even reasonable. Where we were at fault for the slights those people are feeling against us surely not all are true. And no we cannot in the twisted situation we've placed ourselves in, allow anyone to attack us either, regardless.

Therein part lay the conundrum. At some point someone has to stop the killing, the madness.

Surely it won't be Jihadists as that term defines madness. Stupidity supported by religion, false and fake gods.

We also have a responsibility not to do those things that reasonably give people reasons to attack us. Surely we should not sow those seeds, almost begging for people to attack us someday because of our own actions of greed and national desires and at all costs to others.

We must all stop the madness, on all sides. But your Islamic tribes have been doing this to one another for thousands of years. And yet there was a time long ago when you were at peace. But not the uncivilized among you. And that is what this is, you are who we are against. The uncivilized. The barbarians. Ask yourselves, how did you allow yourselves to devolve in such a way and who can stop it?

Only you. Only you....

These are the things I've seen in the news in recent years. Had another country done to us what we did to others, WE surely would have fought back. If we didn't have a military to use, we'd surely have done as we could with guerrilla warfare, with terrorist actions. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, right? To fight back in anyway available?

Bullshit. One's murderer is yet another's murderer.

So be careful in hating.

Because as some like to say,

"There but for the grace of Allah, go I."

Or in this case, we.

So. Think.
Act, responsibly.
Do, the right thing. Stop killing.
Or at least, try to.....try something.

I do care... just maybe not about you

'Screw them, we have champagne': Charlie Hebdo replies to Paris attacks

And, "Le Petite Merde", the ISIL minimind, born Abdelhamid Abaaoud 

has now been blown to bits by his own idiot female cousin during a raid by French police.

Cheers!

We shall not miss you slimy one.

Now....

Who don't I care about?

I don't care. If you are heartless, if you are a terrorist, if you are a bigot.

I don't care that you're offended.

I don't care that you feel there is a make believe war against
you, or your holidays, or religion, or your religion.
I respect a person's right to a belief, not a right to a stupid or hurtful belief.

I don't care what you think if you are talking nonsense 
that your favorite nutcases have dreamed up.

I don't care that you think your God or religion says you can hurt people or kill them. 
That's some God you've dreamed up.

I care about real people, really being hurt.

I care about real pain and real suffering,
not perceived pain and not perceived suffering.

I care about the poor who have no money for food or healthcare. 

I don't care about the rich who are sad they will have less money
just for others to have something at all,
when it will not affect those rich at all in any real substantive way.

I care about reality. 

I care about people who deserve my concern.

Not your luxuries in life when others don't have because you do.
Not when others are dying because of your God,
or your buddies who like to kill and enjoy the benefits
of power over others who are not of your
clan, cult, tribe or nonsense belief system.

So I guess I do care.
I just don't much care about you.

You know I've posted about this before, what it is to exhibit heroism. I shrink myself from the thought of my local community areas being attacked, loved ones dying becuase of terrorists.

But you have to stand up as a human being sometimes even when you don't want to, even when you are afraid, WHEN YOU HAVE REASON TO BE AFRAID. So many of late are afraid for little or no reasons, making up fears, fears unfounded.

Courage is being terrified in the face of terror and still functioning, still doing what needs to be done and not just thinking of yourself.

We all experience cowardice and heroism from time to time and those who experience heroism at certain moments in life do, act and infrequently are viewed and praised for doing such great things.

It is in those moments when we become greater than we are.

Isolationism, rejecting a chance to stand up and face down evil, to give refuge to those in need, these are those moments of heroism, moments that are gifts where we can be allowed to be more than we are.

Decide what you are, who you are, what you want to be, how you want to be seen by others, and in the future by yourself.

Cower safely in a dark corner.
Or stand forth bravely among all of humanity.

Be seen as a coward among citizens.
Or a cowardly nation among nations.

It is your choice as an individual,.
Our choice as a nation.
And now is the time to make it.

A tiny footnote: I am pleased to note that the international media has stopped calling Le Petit Merde, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Paris attack "mastermind" and instead now refers to him as the ringleader. A term that evokes a circus, a far more appropriate one, as mastermind infers some kind of exalted status, rather than that of one who merely coordinated something. 

He is someone who every time I refer to him I have to look up his name yet again. because he is already being forgotten, already barely a footnote in history.